


spiral of ants

by yelldeadcell



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Kingdom Hearts III Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 19:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18037031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yelldeadcell/pseuds/yelldeadcell
Summary: Newly resurrected and missing both her memories and her Keyblade, Xion seeks answers from some unlikely sources.





	spiral of ants

**Author's Note:**

> kh3: Xions here and memory wiped and she has saixs weapon : )  
> me: Huh
> 
> i tried to separate this into chapters but didnt end up liking it much that way....  
> heavily influenced by the 358 manga, also talks about some KHUX stuff

Vexen talks to her while she is reforming, or at least, his heart reaches out and connects to hers. Because naturally Vexen would have gotten his heart and body and mind all aligned into one functional package before, say, anyone who _deserved_ it.

Xion guesses he would be back to Even, now, but none of that really registers to her. Playing around with anagrams is not her strong suit, and she is not about to go around introducing herself as _No. i,_ _the imaginary number_. It’s existentially dreadful to the point of parody. _Now I’m even thinking big words like Vexen…_

And his heart is not the last one she would have picked to latch onto, not the first, but certainly not the last. He was never a threatening memory so much as a mocking one, dying with the secrets of her biology, throne so low to the ground that Roxas would cheerfully joke around about giving her a boost up and scratching a 1 in front of the 4, never quite understanding Roman numerals. Now he was alive again, and he would help her be… alive again, and his heart was not _cold_ towards her, exactly, even in its new sleep.

Perhaps its lying dormant in a Nobody state made it easier for her to see what it held. Yes, she could see it: the pride in watching a short young boy with short blue hair fiddle with formulas, the friendship between the others in Radiant Garden, their ages and personalities arranging them in a strange little family all united under love of science. He had believed in that, believed in it fully, until a pride born of love fell to arrogance as he forgot himself.

How sad. There were some memories she wished not to understand, but she was memory incarnate. If she did not bear witness, who would?  
  
“I would keep her away from Vanitas,” Vexen is warning someone next to him as they watch over her. She wonders who it could be, if not the Superior. “If they come into contact, the reaction will be... unprecedented. And most likely very unpleasant.”

She wants to know why he is being so careful with his replacement, even if she was one of his prized inventions. She wants to know why, but she will not ask.

 

They give her a cloak, and she slips it on, instinctive and familiar without any comfort. She pulls her hood up, too, and keeps it there. They give her black gloves, and she is eager to hide her hands. With no illusion of what she is, she can look down and see her puppet's joints, see where each digit is carved to curve. So she is grateful for her cloak, hood, and gloves.

She has a new twin.

His origins are confusing. She had known Riku when he had traipsed around with long hair and a blindfold and strange thoughts about the way darkness smelled. He had helped her as best as he could, better than anyone else would have. This is him from the past, not old enough to realize how little he knew; but it is also not quite him but a replica, not just in the sense that he is in a new replica but that his heart was of a past replica. In the new replica. A nesting doll.

He was the prototype, so although she is not quite so juvenile or enamored with the power darkness can give, perhaps she is more like his younger sister. He is definitely taller and so sure of himself, but he looks down at her with wild, angry eyes, and she doesn’t know what to do.

She is sure that she has already spoken to someone, the scientist who brought her back. She is sure that she had remembered something, too, about a funny chair and a friend and numbers. But the Superior has taken it all out, as simple as that, as typing on a screen. The Superior has a Superior now, which is very funny, and she is sure the friends she used to have would find it funny as well. The Superior’s Superior doesn’t care whether or not his new vessels are scientists or nesting dolls, so he lets all of these toys be played with while he talks to the moon. It parallels something she has forgotten, but still knows enough to laugh about.

She knows more about memories than Xemnas does. This information she holds dear. She knows you cannot just vacuum them out, because if they were all gone she wouldn’t know she was replacing a scientist and that she had once had two friends, and she also wouldn’t know that she had learned all she knows about memories from a pretty girl with blonde hair. Or was it red?

 _Well, who’s keeping track?_  

“Stay out of my way,” newest Riku says to her as he brushes past, as though she hasn’t spent her whole life trying to get out of the way. She wonders if she hates him.

 

Her whole life had not been much to speak of. How long has it been, since it ended? Has she been gone for longer than she had been alive? Who can she trust to tell her the truth?

Demyx is packing his bag. His bag is really only his sitar, with some clothes and some hair products zipped into the front. She feels bad that the new Riku is replacing him. It is easier to remember someone when they are right in front of you, and every time she happens upon him in the wasteland they are clustered on, a vague idea takes shape: music in a lobby, nonsensical jokes at inopportune times, easygoing enough to be mistaken for friendly.

She wonders if she should make that mistake again.

“Number eight,” she begins, trying to make her voice loud and imposing. It comes out closer to a squeak.

He turns, slowly, the unkempt parts of his hair swaying. “Come on! Number _nine_ , and all of that nonsense isn’t important anymore. We don’t get numbers anymore. Me especially, now that I’m flying the coop.” He squints at her, mouth twisting. “You must be taking my spot.”  
  
She swallows and tries again. “We had numbers. There was a number eight?”

“Well, I guess there are _two_ of you now. I don’t know whether to be mad at ol’ Vex or serenade him. Getting my heart thrown through time and space just to still have Saïx and Larxene ribbing me every chance they get is _seriously_ making me reconsider some things,” he says, going back to his packing.

Saïx. Saïx is a name she knows. “Is Saïx very tall?” she asks, trying to hide her excitement.  
He doesn’t bother turning around again. She watches his shoulders bounce as one of his arms dedicates itself to punctuating his words by gesturing about. “Sure, he’s a big guy. I think he thinks doing his hair like that will make him more imposing.”

So he _did_ have big hair. Things were looking more promising by the minute. “Can I talk to him?”

Demyx slings his sitar case over one shoulder, opens a corridor with a deft flick of his hand. “Whenever you want, newbie. Just screw up somehow and he’ll come on all fours. Good luck with _this_ disaster. At least in the old life we got our own rooms.”

“Demyx,” she says before he leaves. “You are Demyx and you were number nine.”

He finally looks at her again at that. “Weird kid,” he says, seemingly to himself. As the tendrils of darkness snake around him to take him wherever he wants to go, she pulls her hood off to get a better view, memorize what he had looked like. Her last sight of him is of his eyes widening in surprise.

 

The girl with blonde hair had been Naminé. Naminé had explained to her, and Riku had explained to her, that she was a memory sponge, a replica, a puppet. They had brought her heart back from some datascape into this new body. Vexen trusts her heart to shape the body and Xehanort trusts her body to be there when he needs it. There was no real reason to supplant her and the new Riku into these blanks, no real reason that she could discern at all. Perhaps it had simply been Vexen’s extracurricular activity.

She is reading all of this on a screen. The screen is necessary to access the datascape. The screen is about to meet its end from the stick in her hand. She only had to screw up for Saïx to come, and she hates everything the screen is telling her, so this seems logical.

The first smack she gives it is hesitant, landing squarely on the center amidst some report of her behavior in her first lifetime. There are records of her strange affinity for two other members, for her two friends, but it only tells her _Number VIII_ and _Number XIII_ , and this is even more frustrating. She raises the stick above her head and brings it down with both hands, letting out a grunt, and now a _crack_ appears over a picture of the hooded impostor they had all chased down, like some sort of game. Again, she swings at it, and the crack splinters off to split Naminé’s pretty face, spreads to make the accounts of Xion and her friend’s pattern of  comatose spells illegible.

“What exactly,” a cold voice says behind her, “do you think you are doing?”

She whips around, shoulders heaving, and shudders at the person she sees. Yes, he is tall, and yes, his hair spikes up, but this is not her friend. Her heart seizes at the sight of him, and she grips the front of her coat at how _raw_ the full feeling of fear is. She wants to curl into herself and hide.

Saïx stares down at her impassively, waiting for an answer. Instead of giving him one, she turns around and flees. 

 

* * *

 

The wastelands near the Keyblade Graveyard are as bleak as their name suggests. Tall, jagged rocks compose the landscape, and Xehanort has chosen a suspiciously perfect circle of thirteen to be their new thrones. But there are no meetings for them to squabble in, no missions from Saïx’s clipboard, no RTC’ing to a comfortable enough lounge.

Well, there _are_ missions, but so far no one has directed her to a new world. There are some whispers about new seven lights and new seven princesses, the same way they are the new Organization, and Xion watches everyone slip into corridors to go stake them out. She waits for some familiar faces to return before tailing them to wherever they go afterwards, because inhaling all the dust is making her cough.

Marluxia and Larxene have apparently decked out some secret cave to their liking. Xion pulls aside the gauzy curtain they’ve attached to a rod to gawk at the inside. There’s a fluffy pink rug placed squarely in the middle of the smooth stone, a couch with stacks of books and manga on either side, a futon on the floor, and a small mirror on a TV table with an abundance of beauty products surrounding it. She rubs at her eyes to make sure she is seeing everything right.

“No girls allowed, kid,” Larxene sneers at her from where she is reclining leisurely on the couch.

“Are we homeless?” Xion blurts out. Marluxia chuckles at that.

“For beings like us,” he begins, arms sweeping out to gesture at the three of them, “can there really be such a thing as a ‘home’? Have we not all heard the oft-repeated aphorism that home is, ah, where the _heart_ is?”

“I wish he had killed you again,” Larxene says, incomprehensibly. She puts down the comic she had been reading and sits up, glaring at Xion. “Do you _want_ something?”

“I need help,” Xion says, and is surprised that her voice doesn’t come out small. She thinks she would be more afraid of them individually at the rocks than in their silly clubhouse. “I don’t remember anything.”

“And we’ve clear orders not to interfere with the state of your memories,” Marluxia says smoothly. “Apparently, things did not go well for Xemnas regarding you last time.”

“So why bring me back at all?” she asks, marching over and plopping herself next to Larxene, who grimaces and shifts away from her.  
“Saïx believes you will make a useful hostage in a crucial moment, if the opportunity arises. How crass, using a little girl as a shield,” he sighs, sitting cross-legged on the futon in front of her.

Larxene snorts at that, and he smiles at whatever their shared joke is this time. “You’re really not understanding the whole _not interfering_ bit, huh?” she snaps, lightly shoving his shoulder with her heel.

Marluxia manages to give a grandiose shrug, hands splayed with his palms up. “Have you ever known me to follow orders to the letter?”

Xion draws her hood closer over her face. _A hostage..._ And when they won, she would be a vessel anyway. It was win/win. She shouldn’t have expected anything less from Saïx. She sniffles.

Larxene scowls. “You made it leak,” she says to Marluxia, and he sighs.

“I’m afraid there isn’t much we can help you with in our current state, Xion,” he says, over-enunciating her name, _Sheee-oan._ It’s the first time she’s heard someone say it out loud in this incarnation, and it hits her much harder than Larxene saying _it._ She wipes her eyes under her hood, then impulsively wrenches it off.

“What,” she asks hoarsely, “do you two see, when you look at me?”

Marluxia blinks slowly. “A girl of about sixteen,” he says.

“Your haircut’s ugly,” Larxene says. “What, did you let Demyx do it with the kitchen scissors? The back got too long, and the bangs are in your face.”

“What color is my hair?”

“Black.”

“You look like a roach,” Xion says to Larxene, partly out of relief. “Everyone has always thought that.” Marluxia gives an undignified chortle.

Instead of stabbing her, Larxene just twists her mouth and begins to say, “You look like a-”  
  
“What about this?” Xion asks, pulling off her left glove. She shoves her hand in Marluxia’s face, and he frowns.

“A normal hand. Some scabs and callouses from combat.”

“You don’t,” she breathes, “see my joints?”

“As much as I see my own?” he answers, questioning.

She sighs with further relief. Feeling that she owes them an explanation, she mumbles, “When I look down at myself now, I see where all my joints are, where all the pieces fit together. Like a genuine replica.”

“Ah,” he says. “What a delightful oxymoron, one that could only come about in your unique situation.”

“That’s gross,” Larxene says. “Can you, uh, _leave_ now?”  
  
Xion pulls her glove and hood back on, stands and brushes off the bottom of her coat. “Thank you,” she says, carefully stepping around Marluxia on the futon.

“Wait,” he says, getting up and walking to the makeshift vanity. He hands her some small tube with a rose pattern on a teal background. “Hand cream. Everyone needs it, everyone who intends to maintain their _dignity_ in this wasteland anyway.”

“Yep, every girl needs her hand cream,” Larxene says, in a mocking way that makes it clear that she has never needed hand cream in her life. “Here, I got a present too.” She reaches under the couch, then whips something book-sized to Xion so fast that its hard edge prods her in the stomach even as she catches it with both hands. “It’s Saïx’s old clipboard. Bash it over his face for me, for sending me to the damned _ice queen’s_ realm, will ya? X marks the spot.”

 

She buys a tent from a stray Moogle hurriedly fleeing the landscape for something a bit more scenic. Setting it up behind a rock formation tall enough to block most of the wind, she decides to camp out until she knows what to do next.

That night she dreams of Where Nothing Gathers, except it is more of a dining room with levelled thrones, with a long, long table where the old man Xehanort sits at the head. Xemnas and his Somebody sit on either side of him, while the younger Xehanort sits closer to her and the new Riku. The bosses all sit swirling wine in their goblets, while she stares at the orange juice in her own small glass cup, the same as the people her age near her.

“You are causing far more trouble than you’re worth,” Saïx is lecturing, and it takes her a moment to realize he’s talking to her. She picks idly at her food as he continues, “If you waste away again, what would have been the difference in bringing you back in the first place?”

“You don’t have to be so hard on her,” the young woman sitting next to him says, her long black hair cut into blunt bangs framing her face. “That isn’t like you.”

“We’re all just lining up to the slaughter anyway, aren’t we?” a girl with a fox mask whispers from where she sits across from Xigbar. She stirs a yellow flower around in her tea. “There’s no need to tear each other apart before then.”  
  
“There’s nothing worse than not following through on something you want to do,” another girl says, her orange hair tied in long twintails behind her. She smiles from her chair between Larxene and Marluxia, both looking much younger. The three of them are holding hands.

“What did you expect?” the younger Xehanort says to her now, sipping calmly on his orange juice. “You were created to catch the memories of the Keyblade wielder’s Nobody. Now that that connection is weakened, those memories flitting about in the realm of sleep will, inevitably, be caught by you. Tell me, puppet, can you sense Sora now?”

In the dream she keeps staring down at her plate, never eating, her mouth too dry. She closes her eyes as all of the voices blur and fade into one, until she can’t make out a single word.

 

She can’t open corridors of darkness, not being a Nobody anymore; maybe that was why it would be inconvenient to send her on missions. Or perhaps it was because she also couldn’t summon her Keyblade. She tried and tried until the tent collapsed around her with the force of the small sparks of magic that came out of her hands instead. It was all too familiar a frustration. Gritting her teeth and willing back the tears that welled up, she had decided that she would be safest dealing with the monster she knew.

So she jogs all the way to the thirteen rocks, Saïx’s clipboard flapping under her arm. She had already tried to read it for clues, only to find entirely blank pages except for a crappy scribble of a dog on the last page, where he must have thought no one would look. This is enough to bring her back a shining memory, and she is eager to confront him about it.

They had never given Xion a throne in the old meeting room, and now that she clearly had her own place to stand, she couldn’t reach it. She frowns up at the scheming happening between Xemnas, the younger Xehanort, and her target. She can only vaguely hear them, and has to make sure that there is an actual lull in the conversation and not just one of Xemnas’s long pauses before trying to get their attention.  
  
“HEY!” she yells, hurling the clipboard at Saïx with her full strength, which is just enough for it to land at his feet. He and the younger Xehanort startle and look down at her, while Xemnas just smiles menacingly and teleports away, which she is beginning to think is just what he does when he also doesn’t know what to do. Two similar dark stains appear near her, and she steels herself for what she plans on saying next.

But it is much harder with two pairs of cold yellow eyes staring at her, even with younger Xehanort’s apparent amusement. That amusement could so easily turn to anger, and she knew all too well that becoming a Dusk wasn’t all she had to fear anymore.

 _Why? Why fear them? You’re pushing your luck just being here in the first place. You don’t have anything left to lose. You might as well keep pushing,_ a voice inside her whispers.

“I am waiting for you to explain yourself,” Saïx says.

She swallows, and begins: “I was only alive for one year, and you made that year so much harder than it had to be. I hate you,” she says, surprised at how calm she sounds. “But I have something on you. Some intel.”

Saïx crosses his arms. “Well? We’re all dying to hear it.”

“I remember when you let me keep my dog,” she says with finality.  
  
He frowns down at her. “What…. _dog._ ”  
  
“You let me keep my dog that I found. He was orange and he had a green collar.”

“There was never any such dog.”

“Oh yes there was,” she snaps. “What, now the _dog_ was a Nobody too? Or maybe a living memory? The dog that never was?”

“I would not have allowed such frivolities-”

“You even got him one of the fancier water bowls, that refilled whenever it would empty all the way,” Xion finishes. They continue glaring at each other until the younger Xehanort reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder. She blinks at him and finds him smiling further.

“I don’t see why it would lie. Perhaps where it comes from, this dog was there, but for you, he wasn’t,” he says, looking at her but addressing Saïx. _Even the dog gets a ‘he’_ , she thinks bitterly. Young Xehanort continues, “The dog both is and isn’t. But in this replica’s reality, you most certainly got that dog a high-tech bowl. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“What do you have to say for yourself?” she echoes, mirroring Saïx’s crossed-arm pose.

He exhales through his nose, closing his eyes. Then he inhales fully and exhales again. “I say that if the two of you insist on acting like children, I encourage you to seek out another babysitter. I,” and he tucks his clipboard under his arm, “have work to do, to ensure that we achieve our goals.” He starts to walk away.

“Not so fast,” young Xehanort says, and Xion swears she can hear Saïx’s jaw clenching as he reluctantly turns around. _He defers to this kid,_ Xion realizes, and is privately enthused. “I _do_ have a personal stake in studying the hearts of children, with my work on the toy world. And I can tell you that this place is nowhere for a young replica to grow. We want our vessels in prime shape, after all,” he says, and Xion congratulates herself on her instinct to not trust that vague smile. “You ought to find it somewhere more suitable to stay, with a large yard for your dog.”

“There was _never any dog_ ,” Saïx begins, then stops himself, fists clenching. “Understood.” He opens a corridor and steps inside, and it takes a long time of Xion staring at it as it doesn’t fade for her to realize she is meant to follow.

She thinks of her tent collapsed on the floor, and of how little she wants to be alone with the younger Xehanort. She holds her head high while deliberately striding in. The last thing she hears is young Xehanort laughing.

 

* * *

 

Twilight Town is so achingly familiar that her head swims with each step. The townspeople seem to have no qualms anymore about strange people in dark hooded coats wandering the streets, Moogles even stopping her to hawk their wares. She apologizes to them quickly while rushing after Saïx, who makes no effort to slow his long strides.

He eventually leads her to an abandoned shack, unceremoniously throwing open the door to reveal her new humble accommodations. A bed, a table, a small couch. Decidedly better than before. “Don’t go near the mansion. You won’t survive it,” he says simply, and starts to walk away.

“Why did you put me in a new body?” she asks his retreating back.

He does not stop. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he says, in that level voice that has always infuriated her. _It’s working_ , she thinks, as feelings of frustration and inferiority rush back to her. _This might be even quicker than seeing my friends again._

Desperate, she calls out, “Then how do you plan to explain yourself to _him?_ ”

It was a gamble, a lucky guess. He stops in his tracks and turns to glare at her, teeth bared. “Don’t _you_ start to lecture me about _him._ ”

 _I don’t know who_ he _is, and it’s all your fault!_ She clenches her fists and stares him down. “What will you say about- about what you’ve done? Are you really so scared of the Lights that you need a hostage? You aren’t. You’re lying! You had to have brought me back for a reason!”

“Do you intend,” he says, stepping towards her, “on getting the both of us killed?”

“It would be better than not remembering why I died in the first place!” She breathes heavily, and so does he. His eyes are bright, and she wonders what will happen if she keeps trying to get him angry. But it isn’t in her nature to try and upset people; she just wants to have answers. She shuts her eyes and counts to ten, and opens them to find him staring down at his clipboard, which he has cracked in half from clenching it. “If you’re using me to get to someone,” she says finally, “don’t I deserve to know, before I’m gone again?”

He stares at her, and she meets his gaze again, unflinching. Then he closes his eyes and sighs. “What do you want to do? Have a heart-to-heart with me on the clocktower?”

“Yes,” she says, surprised at how easily the answer comes. “Yes. If I’m going to play my part- this time, you at least owe me that.”

Saïx turns to look out the door at the setting sun. She realizes that the sky has been orange the entire time they’ve been here, and wonders how a town such as this one could exist, with all its secrets it isn’t yet willing to give up. Saïx looks at the setting sun for a long while before finally saying, “I’ll come back for you, in three days’ time. If you run away, we can find another vessel, and you’ll be left like this forever. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” she says. She pulls off her glove to look at her fingers, bending each one, staring at where plastic edges meet. He looks down at her again, and she mumbles, “You’ve always seen me this way, haven’t you?”

In response, he grabs her hand in both of his own. She yelps in shock as he none too gently twists it, and pulls away when it begins to strain. “What the hell-”

“Vexen would have no reason to build in unnecessary pain for a rotating joint,” Saïx says. “If it hurts the way a human wrist would, what function do these new replicas serve?” Without another word, he opens a corridor and teleports away.

It ranks proudly as the worst identity-affirming pep talk she will ever receive.

 

She tries to fight a Heartless that comes upon her desolate shack the next day, and for the most part, she succeeds. Her body eases into combat, and chucking spells at it while evading its claws is familiar. Even more familiar is the ache of wishing for her Keyblade.

She knew, since she woke up, that she had a Keyblade. She hadn’t had to read the reports for that. The reports were condescending enough that they _had_ to have been written by Saïx, and he noted that she and Number XIII had tried to trick him when she couldn’t summon hers for a time, but that she had come back from a harrowing mission with a perfect replica. And maybe that had been a replica, born from wishing for it and from mirroring Number XIII’s, though she had no recollection of what method she had used to do so. But she knew that she had a real Keyblade, too, because you could always _feel_ it, ready to be summoned to your hand or pulled back whenever it got thrown away.

Maybe the dangerous situation is what had brought it back to her.

She grits her teeth and lowers her hands as they almost fire off the last spell she would need to finish the Shadow off. Heartless didn’t have the survival instinct needed to know when to flee, but they did know to travel in numbers, and the little thing shambles off to rejoin its pack. She follows at a distance, planning on throwing herself at them recklessly.

She doesn’t have to wait long.

But she isn’t expecting the swarm of Neo-Shadows that descends upon her.

She fights back bravely, cursing and firing off spells as quickly as they come. There’s no end to the creatures as they lunge and scratch at her, and she soon starts feeling the effects of their blows.

 _Come on, come on,_ she thinks wildly, trying to curl her hands around that familiar handle. _Please._

She’s struck down at least ten, maybe fifteen, but more and more keep shuddering out of the ground to leap at her.

 _I know I can. Please, come back to me._ She scrunches her eyes shut to try one last time, and her heart sings as a sudden weight settles in her hands. She swings it as hard as she can at her attackers.

But the weight is too heavy, and her new weapon isn’t shaped like a key. It isn’t even shaped like a blade. It’s just a long, strangely-shaped block with some spikes jutting out of the end. She needs the full strength of both of her hands to continue swinging it, and her muscles begin to ache.

Well, Xion is nothing if not adaptable. She still cracks it over the Neo-Shadow’s small, writhing heads, watching them explode and leave behind Munny. She remembers suddenly leaning over to pick it all up with her old friends, speculating about how and why the little creatures had the coins, and where they could have possibly kept them. The memory is so vivid that it shocks her still, and the crowd of Heartless eagerly falls upon her again.

Out of nowhere, a vine snakes past her boots and sweeps up the remaining creatures with ease. She stares as knives fly past her and land with perfect accuracy on their heads, and the Heartless dissipate just like that. Her new weapon disappears as she turns to gawk at her saviors.

Marluxia and Larxene are striking a pose only a few feet away from her, him with his hand splayed out from commanding the vines, her with her fists clenched as she summons her knives back. “Hey, poppet. Miss us?” Larxene calls, grinning.

“Were you the one who used to call me that?” Xion asks immediately.

Larxene sighs and shakes her head. “One-track mind, huh?” She extends a finger at Xion. “Listen, kid, memories can be _so_ much more trouble than they’re worth.”

“And _knowing_ your past,” Marluxia adds smoothly, “is worlds different from fully _remembering_ it.” He turns his hand palm up, and Xion decides she has nothing to lose by walking over and joining them. “But if you must know, Larxene has simply taken a shine to the nickname Xigbar uses. He was number two.”

“In more ways than one. It was between him or us to come check on you today,” Larxene says, turning to walk in some unknown direction. “You’d better be grateful that we took up the job. Who knows what nasty stuff those old men have got planned for you?”

“Xehanort is going to possess me,” Xion answers matter-of-factly.

Marluxia makes a noise of assent, ushering Xion on to follow his friend. “That’s certainly as far as that particular old man has thought through your use. But Xigbar’s closeness to him has left us uneasy. He is instead monitoring Xemnas and his Somebody’s actions here today.”

“Gotta say, I don’t see the appeal of being so loyal to Xemnas _or_ the geezer he spawned from. That fool Saïx at least has the excuse that he drove himself crazy wanting a heart,” Larxene snickers. She turns to quirk an eyebrow at Xion. “Why the hell did you have a bite-size version of his claymore, anyway?”

 _Saïx’s…. claymore? His weapon?_ Xion shakes her head and deflects with another question. “Where are we going?”

“We’ve heard talk of a wonderful new restaurant here,” Marluxia says, yellow eyes glittering. “We’re eager to sample what the local cuisine has to offer.”

“And you owe us,” Larxene supplants helpfully.  
Xion stops in her tracks. “I dunno if I should go into town,” she mumbles, tugging at her hood where it sits over her face. “Saïx might be mad.”

Larxene rolls her eyes. “Listen, kid, he’s not our _manager_ anymore. Sure, he talks big, but do you honestly think he’s gonna look Xehanort in the eyes and say, ‘I want you to send Replica Number One to her room’? His weirdo grudge against you means squat.”

“Grudge…?” Xion wonders, starting up her pace next to them again. _Is he unfair to me? I thought he was just like that with everyone._

Her ponderings occupy her until they arrive at the outskirts of town. Larxene and Marluxia’s idea of sampling the local cuisine apparently involves Larxene bullying some very short kid in a large hat covering his entire head into going and ordering for them. Marluxia plays good cop by handing over the Munny and helping write down the order (“Family size fried chicken combo, and for you, Xion?” “Chicken fingers.” “Oh, make that three sets of chicken fingers, with three orders of fries.” “And the finest wine they have. Some soda for the young lady.”).  The unlikely trio is soon trekking back to Xion’s shack with bags full of take-out, then plopping it all down and sitting on the couch to enjoy.

It’s the best chicken Xion has ever smelled. Her stomach rumbles, and she clutches it in embarrassment.

Marluxia peers at her. “That’s right. Vexen did insist that his new creations would be indistinguishable from human. You must be very hungry.”

“I… guess I am,” she says, smiling sheepishly. Larxene is already chomping down some fries, so she follows her lead and digs in, unable to hide her delight at the abundance of crispy food.

“This world, bathed in mystery and sunset,” Marluxia says after his first bite of chicken, “does not disappoint when it comes to culture.”

“This,” Larxene says with her mouth full, “is the best goddamn chicken we’ve ever had.”

Xion lets herself feel content, to the side of them. It feels right. “One was short and one was tall,” she says as she realizes it, reaching over Larxene’s hands for a drumstick.

Larxene glares at her. “The hell are you on about _now?_ ”

“My old friends. One was short and one was tall.” She takes another large bite. “It wasn’t you two, though, right? Your names are Marluxia and Larxene, and you were numbers… ten and eleven.”

“Eleven and twelve,” Marluxia corrects her, and Larxene whacks him on the arm, widening her eyes at him. He blinks at her before nodding.

“Listen, poppet,” Larxene says, leaning back and crossing her legs, gesturing to Xion with one hand while another brings a chicken finger to her mouth. “We’re not just gonna give away information for _free._ ”

“There are further ways that you can help us,” Marluxia says, “aside from treating us to this lovely meal. We did, after all, save your life.”

Xion opens her mouth, about to say that she could have handled it after a quick Cure, but something else he says catches her by surprise. “I can… help you?”

He leans in over Larxene to look at her intensely. “The witch Naminé. Is the name familiar to you?”

Xion swallows. “Yeah. She helped me. Um, that’s what the reports told me, anyway.” She realizes he was right, about the difference between knowing and remembering.

“She was in our personal care,” Larxene says, not letting the moment spoil her quest to shovel as many fries as she could into her mouth. Her mouth twists while chewing as she adds, “But she wormed her way out.”

“If we strike a deal with you for information, we’ll be putting ourselves in more vulnerable a position than we are. Meanwhile, you have nothing to lose, Xion,” Marluxia says, never breaking his stare. “So I hope you can see how serious we are about this.”

“Uh, sure,” Xion says. He raises his wine glass ( _where had he gotten those?_ ) to toast, and she lightly clinks her plastic cup to his.

The explanation of their story comes in bits and pieces as they continue eating. They were also missing memories. “Memories that,” Marluxia says lowly, “were once so important that their very absence is becoming a significant presence.” She wonders if people forgetting her could be like that too, wonders if her friends are straining as hard as she is to remember. Their research and deaths in Castle Oblivion had solidified his resolve to re-acquire them, and he had been surprised but pleased to find Larxene here, following the only lead they had: the old Organization and their obsession over memories. They believed Naminé might be able to unravel and find whatever it was that was weighing on them so.

“But,” Larxene says, breaking her uncharacteristic silence. “Well. Naminé isn’t going to help us anytime soon.”

“You were bad to her?” Xion asks, surprised.  
Larxene frowns. “Duh. Don’t let this little shindig fool you, kid. We don’t usually consort with brats like you.”

Xion swirls one of her last fries around in her little pool of ketchup. “Sorry. You guys have been nice enough to me this time around, though. Like friends,” she says, smiling down at her plate, “or older siblings.”

The room really goes silent at that.

“Sorry,” Xion says again, wincing. “I-if we make it out, I’ll ask Naminé to help you guys.”

“Thank you, Xion,” Marluxia says, and the three toast again.

“Number eight was that freak who chewed us up and spit us out, Axel,” Larxene says, wasting no time, and the name stabs at Xion so fiercely that she clutches the front of her coat. “Your short friend was Roxas.” Oh, and that one hurt just as badly. She clutches at her head through her hood, letting out a whimper.

“Too fast, I think,” Marluxia says, putting his hand on Larxene’s shoulder. She huffs.

“It _asked._ But yeah, that’s kind of all we know. We got tricked by Axel and shut down before you three really started gallivanting about the castle,” Larxene says.

Xion is breathing hard, opening and closing her hands, staring down at them. _Axel and Roxas._ She pulls her glove off to find smooth skin, and opens and closes her hand again, counting to ten. _My friends were Axel and Roxas._

“I do _not_ envy you for playing house with the cast of whackos we left behind,” Larxene is ranting on. “Maybe Saïx never should have taken you out of that castle, huh? I’m sure we would have had a lot of fun together, you, Riku, Naminé, Sora, and our little Organization tearing each other apart.” She grins wickedly.

“Sora,” Xion rasps. “I hate Sora.”

“You hate him?” Marluxia asks, egging her on.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. She brings her hands to her head again, sole glove forgotten on her lap. “No, I… I used to.” She feels nervous, now, with the two of them watching her. She stands up suddenly, jostling the table. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Where?” Marluxia asks her, smiling slightly. “You won’t have us to show you the way.”

“And Saïx will be oh-so-angry when he finds you roaming around with those horrible names fresh in your mouth,” Larxene giggles, narrowing her eyes.

 _They are dangerous,_ Xion thinks, and she curses herself for making the wrong call on who to trust this time. _Whoever they forgot, whoever they’re so careful when talking about, whoever they need me to find- I’m not her. They’d crush me underfoot if they could. They’re still Nobodies._ She sits back down again, carefully regulating her breathing.

“Well!” Larxene says, standing up herself. “Thanks for the meal, poppet. We’d better get back to our training. Got a big show coming up, you know!”

“You’ve been very hospitable, Xion,” Marluxia adds, following Larxene’s motion. “We’ll be sure to keep in touch.”

She watches them strut into a shared corridor, then flops back onto the couch now that she has it to herself.

She almost cries. Instead she turns to punch the back cushion, over and over again, until the ache from the fighting before forces her to stop. She falls asleep and dreams of orange flowers, towering above her and laughing at her.

 

* * *

 

Xion spends the entirety of the next day training and thinking.  
  
The claymore’s weight takes getting used to, but soon she can swing it with just her dominant arm, although two-handed feels better. Every time she thinks about yesterday’s events, more spikes jut out of the end of the weapon, and she learns how to utilize them to take out Shadows in one sweeping motion. Soon she is back where all those Neo-Shadows had spawned, clobbering them with abandon.

“So what!?” she screams at a small Dusk following her around as he does his strange dance. “So what if they were a little mean and teleported away? That’s all they’re good for anyway. They still need me to recomplete themselves. What a joke! I should have done this to her, she looks like one anyway,” she yells while connecting the spiked end on a Neo-Shadow’s head. “You want some of this, too?!?” she asks the Dusk fiercely, and it goes on dancing.

Oh. That’s right. The lesser Nobodies wouldn’t go for her the way the Heartless did, even if she couldn’t command them. “Do _you_ guys remember me?” she asks, and the Dusk wiggles. “Figures. I guess you’re my babysitter today. That’s not so bad.”

The Dusk swirls around in a circle, limbs flopping about.

“You know what’s even funnier?” she tells it, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I got my heart back before any of them. Me! They never even got me a chair!”

The Dusk bobs its head in what she imagines to be a laugh.

“They all wanted to take over the stinking place, plotting and scheming to betray Xemnas. But he got the best of them after all. They could have remade themselves whenever they pleased if they’d just stopped acting so rotten!”

The Dusk wiggles. She pats it on the head before turning back to newly-spawned Heartless, collecting Munny as she went.

“I only remember dying,” she says, half to it and half to herself, as her body flows with the movements of fighting. “I remember deciding to go back to where I belonged. I remember knowing that everyone would forget me, and thinking, _that’s not so bad, I’ll never forget._ Some sunset that I would never forget.” She wipes her brow of sweat and looks up at the orange sky. “Hard to forget it when it never goes away. I was an idiot. Of course they would even take my own memories.”

The Dusk dances along behind her, and she imagines that it’s listening. She goes on, easily decimating the swarms of Heartless as they approach her. “This used to be my job, huh? Purebloods and Emblems and quotas. I guess it wasn’t so bad.”

“I’ll see this through to the end,” she decides aloud, chest heaving as she reaches the end of her energy. She walks away from the Heartless nest, claymore trailing behind her until it disappears in a flash. It must be hours later, but the sky hasn’t changed. “I’ll follow the only lead I have, just like those two fools. But I won’t believe in any one person, _especially_ not Xemnas. I have my heart now. I earned it. I’ll _earn_ them back. I’ll find them again,” she promises the air.

On a whim, she brings her hand in front of her and curls it, seeking out that handle. Her eyes widen in shock and delight when her Keyblade appears, wonderful and shiny and the perfect weight. She laughs and twirls around with it, clutching it to her chest.

She only stops at feeling a weight on her leg, and looks down to see the Dusk clutching her, too. Too happy to feel foolish, she leans down to sweep it into a hug.

 

She schedules out her final day throughout that night, and awakens after a dreamless sleep ready to put everything into action.

First, she carefully counts out her Munny to make sure she had made more than she had spent at the restaurant two days ago. She’s relieved to find out that she has just enough left over for what she wants to buy. She flags down a wayward Moogle and asks him for two ice creams, and rushes to the clock tower as fast as she can, plastic bag trailing behind her, hood hiding her face from any townspeople.

She doesn’t have to be able to teleport to make it up there. She always liked climbing the stairs up, a little extra effort after a long day’s work to the shining moment at the top. Her heart and head pound with each step as she goes. _I hope I don’t have meaningful headaches for the rest of my life,_ she thinks, gripping the handrail as she rubs at the side of her hood.

Saïx is already waiting for her at the top, looking out at the sky again, legs crossed over the ledge. She’s surprised he took the initiative to sit. She carefully sits herself down a few feet away from him, and tentatively offers him one popsicle, holding the other in her lap.

He stares at her, then takes it, carefully removing it from its wrapper. “You might not realize it,” he says stiffly, “but this is in remarkably poor taste.”

“Huh?” She frowns, biting into her own. “Sorry. I got creamsicles because I figured they’re everyone’s favorite.”

“They are a safe choice,” he agrees, and she congratulates herself. They eat in silence for a little while, and she wonders where to even begin.

Once they’re both done, she holds out the plastic bag to use for garbage, and he drops his stick and wrapper in. “How did you even remember me, to bring me back?” is what she settles on asking, voice warbling in the air.

Saïx turns away from her, and she stares at him freely: the clean scar, pointed ears, long hair swept over his hood. She decides to take her own off for the first time since asking Marluxia and Larxene how they saw her in their little cave clubhouse, and he pays her no mind, to her relief. “My reports. Vexen insisted on trying again with that Riku, for his own purposes.”

“I hate that Riku,” she interrupts. “He’s rude.” She’s happy to take a stand on that.

He ignores her. “I found evidence of you, even reports of you moving among our ranks, which… surprised me. But as outlandish as it seemed, the more I tried to fit you in to my recollection of that year, the more I found blanks where you could have fit. After all, Axel and I wouldn’t have… Things wouldn’t have gone the way they did without some outside interference.” He casts her a sidelong glance now. “Seeing your face for the first time was… strong enough an emotional impetus to force me into remembering.”

So he was with Vexen when she reformed. She recalls Larxene telling her about him leading her out of the castle and realizes that both times she was born, he was one of the first people there. She holds her hands up to her cheeks. “You can see my face, now?”

He sighs. “Yes. And I realized I had been… wrong. I had only been making things worse with Axel, by taking it out on you.”

 _Look at you, all grown up,_ is the sarcasm she wants to throw at him. Instead she wraps the handle of the plastic bag around her hands, then unwinds it slowly, over and over. “You want to make it up to him. By giving me back to him, like a present.”

“No.” He shakes his head slightly, which she figures is as violently as she’ll ever see him emote without seeing him trying to kill someone. “No, he won’t forgive me that easily. It was for my own selfish reasons. My own selfish redemption, before the end.”

“You’ll just reform,” she says fiercely, tearing the plastic of one handle in two. “You’ll just reform and be happily ever after. I can’t even remember… Axel. And Roxas.” She starts muttering to herself again, tearing the plastic to bits between her fingers: “Number eight and number thirteen. One was short and one was tall. One was Axel and one was Roxas. Number eight and number thirteen…”

Saïx is staring at her, now. “You don’t remember? Even with your heart?”

She whips her head up to glare at him. “Of course not. What use does Xehanort have with a replica full of its own memories? I just get all your dreams screaming at me every night. All the people you’ve lost,” she says sourly. “Poor Seekers of Darkness! I don’t even know what to do, now that I’m human. I don’t know how to have a heart!”

There is silence again, and she wonders if he pities her or if he’s disgusted by her or both. Then he says, quietly, “I think you’re doing just fine.”

Xion lets out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, in comparison, sure. You just let them take your heart again, huh? After we all fell for it, for meeting quotas and completing Kingdom Hearts.” She grits her teeth. “At least, _you_ fell for it.”

He inhales, then exhales, then does it slowly again. “I needed a purpose. I have nothing,” is all he says, and she thinks she pities him and is disgusted by him too. After a while, he asks, “So what do you think I should do?”

“Regarding _him_?” she says, close to mocking.

“Yes,” he says simply.

She frowns, running a hand through her hair. It really was getting too long in the back. She might need to grab some kitchen scissors soon. She begins, “Well, first, make sure you look your best and turn up the charm.”

“What,” Saïx says flatly.

“You heard me. And maybe share some food,” she says, gesturing to her largely demolished plastic bag. “Then,” and she grins mischievously, “admit that you were jealous of some teenagers.”

He sighs shakily, grimacing. “You ask much of me.”

“I’m as much expertise as you’re going to get, regarding hearts,” she says, unable to keep the smug triumph out of her voice. It was such a relief to really yell out how she felt that now her heart feels almost light. And because she’s curious and because they’re playing twenty questions, she asks, “What is someone like _you_ going to do once you reform, anyway?”

His answer comes immediately. “Change out of this goddamn coat.”

She has to smile. “Me too. And learn to skateboard. And cut my hair.”

“There’s some scissors in-”

“Yeah, yeah.” She stands and stretches, then picks up her garbage bag, balling it up between her hands. “I’m going to see this through to the end,” she says with finality, holding her hand out to him to help him up. “I already promised a Dusk, but he probably ran into a wall and dissipated by now. I’m going to fight to see them again and _earn_ my happy ending. Even if I have to fight alongside _you._ ”

Saïx gives her a small smirk that disappears almost as soon as it forms, then takes her hand to haul himself up. _It must have been when he twisted my hand before,_ she realizes, _that I got his weapon_. It's an instinct she has forgotten. He says, “Don’t let that resolve waver.”

“Whatever.” She brushes off her coat, making her way to the door that leads down. “You’re gonna want to fight with me, whenever it happens. I’ll show you something new you’re not expecting.”

He snorts. Xion turns away to begin to trek down, surprised to hear him hovering around at the top. Once she’s at the bottom, she looks up to see him still there, as though waiting for someone else. She shrugs it off as none of her business.

She shoves her plastic bag in a recycling bin on the way back to her shack, and can’t help the skip in her step that develops as she walks. _It’s cathartic, and does a heart good, to yell at someone you dislike,_ she decides. She would have to keep that in mind. She opens the door to her shack, and it looks lonelier than ever.

Xion lays back on her bed and wonders how she could expand this shack to fit three people. She wonders if the ceiling will be too short for her tall friend, and if her short friend likes creamsicles or another ice cream flavor. She wonders if Naminé and Riku will come to visit. Before she knows it, she’s having to will back hot pinprick tears again, this time just from the overwhelming dizziness of hope. She has to believe she will find them. She has to.

“I won’t cry until I find them again,” she promises herself aloud, and rolls over for a lazy afternoon nap.

**Author's Note:**

> cant wait for this all to go down the toilet with KH3.02: Xions Sleep Realm Adventure  
> this honestly turned out a lot more optimistic than i intended but i didnt want her to just go through more torture. nomura does that already. she probably just sat on a rock  
> also all credit where its due, this fanart (https://shima88.tumblr.com/post/182758812005/) is what made me remember that she has to hold someones hand to get their weapon in mangaverse at least n that p much inspired this whole thing LOL  
> I literally have only been able to think about kingdom hearts for a full month. :)


End file.
